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Sunday, January 8, 2012

Tournament report w/ Chandelure and more

I didn't help Esa at all.

Hello all
The Deck Out followers!

As you know if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I was in a CC this
Saturday. As I said in the Chandelure article, I didn’t want to play it
anymore. However, it turned out that I didn’t have time to do any testing or
deck building between last Cities so I was forced to play Chandelure once
again. I was pretty frustrated by this because playing the same deck 4 full tournaments
(6 rounds of Swiss and 3 top matches in each tournament) straight was too
monotonic for me.

Chandelure was fun to play when it wasn’t considered as a metagame deck and
when I haven’t played every match-up with it. However, going to this tournament
I knew every match-up inside out and I could’ve played the games with my eyes
bind. Anyways, I wanted to do some changes to the list if I was going to play with
it in the tournament once again. This time the list looked like this.

8x Psychic Energy
3x Rescue Energy
=11
As you can see, I finally got Promo Litwicks. In fact, most of the cards aren’t
even mine because I own almost none Noble Victories because our Local
Distributor – Bergsala Enigma – isn’t really interested in the Pokémon TCG
anywhere in the Scandinavia. I still miss prizes from 2 CC wins and one 2nd
place meaning that I’m still to receive over a booster box of Noble Victories
Boosters. However, thanks to Matti I’ve managed to play Chandelure in the past
Cities.
Enough of the rant. As you can see, I also decided to run Gloom in my deck
because everyone’s being saying that I’m crazy because I don’t run a Gloom.
Giving Gloom a chance wouldn’t hurt that much, right? Well to be honest, I did
nothing with it during the whole tournament. I also took off the Blissey and
thought about adding a Bellosom but due bad metagame predicting I didn’t do
even that and that was the reason the tournament didn’t go that well.
Anyways, to the games.
1. Round (Klingklang/Vileplume/Blissey/Victini)
This is a very scary deck because it can OHKO Chandelure with Klingklang’s Gear
Grind. However, the match-up reminds me of Vanilluxe match-up very much. If you’re
able to eliminate their Victinis, they will eventually fail to double tails. We
both got a decent set-ups but there wasn’t a game at all because her 2nd
Victini was prized and she managed to flip a double double tails with
KlingKlang to one of my Chandelures. Burn and Confusion did the rest of the
work since Klingklangs retreat cost is 3 and attaching energy manually and
retreating at the same time doesn’t really work at all. The game could have
been difficult without her bad luck because Jirachi was my last prize.
1-0
2. Round Zekrom/Eelektrik/Thundurus/Rocky Helmet
Well, I had a super start and I had seen this match-up too many times to know
that it’s the most autowin match-up on the planet. However, things didn’t go as
planned because he started the game and when I used my Collector in my T1, I
noticed that my 2 Oddishes are prized – whoops. Well, I opened with my only Oddish
in the deck so suddenly things looked terrible. Well, he was able to Catcher
the Oddish T2 with Thundurus (of course) and decided to go with Chandelure and
Dodrio heavy set-up. I was pretty frustrated because I knew I was going to lose the game if I wasn’t
able to get the Oddishes soon from my prizes. I managed to get few easy prizes
from 30 HP Tynamo and Cleffa so I was able to get the 1st Oddish out
of my prizes. I decided to took a chance and play it on the Bench (he had used
3 Catchers and 2 Junk Arms) at that point but he was still able to Catcher the
Oddish from the bench. Somehow the offensive Chandelures and right damage
counters placements made the game very close even though I didn’t have a
trainer lock. It was close but I managed to get the Vileplume in the play in my
last turn and won the game.
2-0
I think it tells something about the match-up that I was able to win the game
even without Vileplume. After the match I joked that I should try building a
Chandelure deck without Vileplume but I know it wouldn’t be that good so
ditched the idea.
3. Round Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode
This was probably the most frustrating game of the day. We flipped the starting
flip, he started the game (went 2nd in every game so far) and we
flipped our basics. He used Sage’s and manually attached energy to his active
Kyurem. I know I couldn’t use Vileplume because my hand wasn’t that good but I
had a T3 Chandelure in my hand. However, when I looked at the table in my T1, I
knew how the game would go. Since he started the game he was able to hit
Glaciate before I was able to hit with Chandelure to his Kyurem and that was
what decided how the match would turn out. Knowing this fact, I attached energy
to my Litwick. Well, the turns went as I predicted and he got T3 Glaciate and I
got a T3 Chandelure. However, the game was over at that point. I didn’t have a Blissey
Prime or a Cobalion in my deck so I had no possibility for an epic comeback
like in the Finals of the last tournament and just played the game knowing that
I would lose the game.
2-1
This was the first time I was very frustrated about the first turn rule while
playing with Chandelure. The opening flip doesn’t affect Chandelure usually
that much but in this case I knew it was the thing that decided how the match
would go. The saddest part was that I knew it as soon as we flipped our active Pokémons
face-up. Ignorance is bliss.
4. Round Durant
Well, this was a deck that I thought I would run into at some point. He got a
horrible opening hand and was only able to Devour for 1 card in T1 and T2. I
was able to get a T2 Plume and that was the game. He never got a decent set-up
because of trainer lock and one Chandelure just killed the Durants because he
wasn’t able to get them back with Revives.
3-1
5. Round Cobalion/Kyurem/Landorus/Electrode
I knew what he was playing so when I saw my opening hand, I knew I would lose
once again. Once again, without Blissey or Cobalion, the match-up is just
horrible unless Chandelure is able to get a T2 Chandelure, which wasn’t in
sight during the whole tournament. I also had a lack of energy during the whole
game so I’m pretty sure that I didn’t even hit with a Chandelure more than one
time during the whole game. Everything went as badly as they could in this
difficult match-up.
3-2
I dropped from the tournament. This was due 3 reasons. First, I didn’t feel
like playing with Chandelure in the first place but had no other option.
Second, the loss in the 3rd, which was caused by an opening flip
made me remember once again how horrible the first turn rule really is. Third,
my resistance was the worst of 3-2s so even if I won the last round; I wouldn’t
have made the top cut. So I scooped and went to play Dominion.
Here is the top8 of the tournament.
1. Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode
2. Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode/Landorus
3. Chandelure/Vileplume/Bellosom
4. Chandelure/Vileplume
5. Chandelure/Vileplume/Blissey
6. Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode
7. Vanilluxe/Victini/Vileplume/Cobalion/Victini(V-Create)
8. Reshiram/Typhlosion
As you can see, the metagame – well, I don’t know what to say about it. IMO
Cobalion/Kyurem/Electrode and Chandelure (and 6 corners) are the top2 decks in
the format (when they are well-built and played) and it shows. I don’t know how
Magnezone/Eelektrik has been able to take the most Cities but I’m going to find
that out in my article next week. However, it’s good to remember that
Chandelure is very close behind in wins even though it wasn’t that played in
the first few weeks in Cities.

On a side
note, the 2007 Masters World Champion Tom Roos was able to take these Cities
once again (his second win in a row) so I much give him a credit for very well
built Kyurem/Cobalion/Electrode.
I will hopefully be able to test a bit before next Cities so I can get back to
CP track. I’m still missing 7 points from the best possible Best Finish Limit
that you can get from Cities, so there’s still work to be done and I have 3
Cities left. I missed the first 2 Regionals of Finland so I’m very much behind
other Finnish players in CP points. I hope I can correct that in Cities and in
the upcoming Regionals. I need to be in top4 of the CP Points when the
Nationals take place. Why? I’ll explain that later this year in one of my
entries.
Anyways, at the moment I’m on a train going back to Vaasa once again since my Christmas
break is over and the University starts once again tomorrow. It has been a great month of a vacation and I hope you
guys had always a great Christmas break (if you had a break at all) and a great
start for the new year. I’ll be very busy until the mid-summer but I hope that
my hard work will pay off and I’ll get great experiences in the progress (Trip
to Hawaii and summer job would be nice as well, lol).
Thanks for reading and remember also to check the interview of Kyle “Pooka”
Sucevich that will be released tomorrow! Feel free to comment, every thought is appreciated.

Nice and hilarious report, I cracked up at the Litwick: "I didn't help Esa at all". xD

Sucks about you running into your autolosses twice in the tournament. I really hate the Kyurem match-up especially when I don't run Cobalion in my Chandelure deck. I've tried addding Cobalion since and I've never really had a problem with Kyurem.

Boooooooes to Litwick promos, for not helping you.The glooms are unnecessary, except when you are behind the race in set-up, and no candies are available.I'd prefer a cobalion (for gloom), to battle some decks, since its a heavy hitter (and pichu "searchable"), even if it requires a steel energy for energy press attacks.Have you thought about a Chandelure/Reuniclus deck? Both seem solid strategies, and could counter some strategies.

LuccyMcduck: Yeah, I agree but we'll probably play with the first turn rule the next 2-3 years if things change as they usually change in Pokémon TCG. And you're correct, Tampere is the next tournament, I'll be attending.

Zarmakuizz: Yeah, as I said, I'll explain that later, probably after our Cities are over or when I have too much spare time :D

lol :D: Yeah, Cobalion or Blissey should be in the deck in case of Kyurems. Well, maybe next time, even though there won't be a next time for Chandelure and me...

Elias: Chandelure/Reuniclus may work with Vileplume but I guess that if I want to run Ross.dec, I'll run something cool like Steelix and not Chandelure :D Chandelure is just plain boring when you have played over 30 tournament matches with it.